The Commission is asking for help in drawing up guidance and practical advice for boosting the re-use of weather data, traffic data, publicly funded research data, statistics, digitised books, and other types of public sector information (PSI).

Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: “The open data revolution is all about individuals and entrepreneurs and that includes the giving them a role in policy design.”

Interested parties can contribute until 22 November 2013, and with their input help ensure effective implementation of the newly revised PSI Directive, which aims to ensure public authorities release more information at little or no cost to users.

“We were successful in finalising a new directive for public sector information. Now we need to implement it in a way that creates a single market for these data, so that companies can build pan-European apps and other innovations. To get Europe-wide value from this data we need the rules to be applied in a clear, common way,” Kroes said

Background

The results of this consultation will support guidelines to be published in 2014. A recent study shows that economic benefits for the EU from easier availability of PSI could reach 40 billion euros annually. The growth rate of companies having access to free PSI is 15% higher than those who need to pay.

Opening up public data resources for re-use is one of the key actions of the Digital Agenda for Europe, however uncertainties surrounding compliance with the licensing and charging provisions have discouraged innovation and commercial deployment of PSI in many parts of the Union.